


(I'll meet you where) the river forks

by orphan_account



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-17
Updated: 2010-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:32:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray doesn't tell his mother, because his mother has had enough disappointment in her life, he's been enough disappointment in her life, and he doesn't want her turning this into another thing he's fucked up. He doesn't think he has, this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(I'll meet you where) the river forks

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Sunset Rubdown's _Shut up I am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings_

It starts in Iraq, exactly where it shouldn't. It starts with hands, Walt's clever, clever hands, and Ray's sometimes clever mouth and it just moves on from there until there isn't anything either of them can do to stop it without talking about it. And neither of them is talking about it.

*

Ray thinks: This has to stop.

Ray thinks: Jesus Christ I'm a mess.

Ray thinks: This is disgusting.

That doesn't stop anything.

*

They get back and it still doesn't stop, somehow, even when they're making plans between discussing the latest movie that got all the action shit wrong, when Walt interrupts Ray's sneering over the way an AK-47 doesn't work that way to say "If I come to Kansas City can I stay with you?" and Ray says "Okay," and then slides right back into the rant.

*

Walt stays in Kansas City. Walt stays, and he says he just doesn't want to live with his mother for the rest of his life, says he'll find an apartment, he'll find a job, but it's not like he's sleeping on Ray's couch, it's not like Ray doesn't want him there, even if he isn't going to say it.

He says, "I can go back to Virginia," one day, when the job search hasn't been working and some fight over how Ray drinks his milk homo and Walt drinks his one-percent and Ray always forgets to pick it up turns into something mean.

Ray notices how he doesn't say _home_, and he says "Whatever makes you happy, Hasser."

Walt doesn't leave.

*

Ray hasn't believed in god since he was a kid, stopped believing in god sometime around when he found his mom sitting under the tree just past midnight on Christmas with Ray's gifts half-wrapped and her head in her hands, her cigarette half-out and almost burning the ends of her hair. Ray had finished wrapping them and pretended to be surprised later that morning, but maybe he over-did it because all it did was start her crying.

Ray doesn't believe in god, but if there is a god, if there's some kind of fucked up reasoning behind this, either he's going to hell for Walt or he's going to hell for the bodies he's left in his wake. It's one or the other. He isn't going to get out scot-free.

He isn't the kind who'd enjoy himself in heaven, repressed and too perfect, but that doesn't mean he's asking for hell. And Walt, Walt the good little pastor's favourite, with his big blues and his shy smile, probably singing the hymns best of anyone, Walt believes in god and Walt thinks he's going to hell, Ray can tell he thinks he is, and Walt doesn't leave, which just makes Ray wonder.

*

Ray doesn't tell his mother, because his mother has had enough disappointment in her life, he's been enough disappointment in her life, and he doesn't want her turning this into another thing he's fucked up. He doesn't think he has, this time.

*

Walt doesn't tell Brad either, because this isn't the sort of thing you tell anyone, not anyone, especially not the guy who's your best friend even if he can barely stand you half the time. Especially not the guy who sleeps with his gun and wakes with his gun, just like the rest of them, because they live Marines, ooh-rah, and this is not in the books. And Ray maybe left the books behind, packed up and left all the moto bullshit and the fucked command, but he can't shake the feeling this isn't allowed.

*

Ray works a stupid, menial job at a fitness centre, checking in women who are trying to stay thin enough that their husbands might just fuck them once this month, checks in guys who think they're fucking warriors because they go to the gym once a week.

_I've seen the inside of people's skulls_, Ray wants to tell the men who leave looking proud. _I've blown out their brains and felt nothing._

He doesn't say it, because he needs the job.

*

Walt doesn't get a job in Kansas City. He goes back to Iraq. He leaves the marines, which is a relief, but he goes back to Iraq on a contract, and this time Ray is just a little relieved that at least his higher-ups are doing it for money and not honour, and maybe that'll be a little less likely to get Walt killed.

It still keeps him up, some nights, Walt staring into the abyss and it staring back, yadda yadda, but mostly Walt killing someone and not having his country as an excuse, Walt coming back all wrong.

That and he doesn't know why his bed feels wrong when he stretches out and feels nothing but sheets, cool to the touch.

*

Walt leaves and comes back, makes a habit of it, using Ray's place as some sort of spring board, coming back stinking of the desert Ray is glad to be free of, and tasting like all the things Walt isn't going to tell him, because he knows Ray doesn't want to hear them.

They say things, they always say things, Ray like some long stand-up routine and Walt offering him the perfect commentary, but Walt doesn't talk about Iraq, and Ray doesn't talk about the fact that Walt's a slob and leaves his shit all over the place that only has Ray's name on the lease but has Walt's fingerprints over every inch.

Walt goes off again, and Ray says "If you get shot, I'm skipping your funeral," and doesn't say anything else, not anything that's bursting up against his skull, just smoothes his fingers over the back of Walt's neck and lets Walt kiss him goodbye again.

*

Ray doesn't wait, because there isn't anything to wait for. They aren't anything, nothing they talk about. Ray goes out and he picks up girls, sometimes, when it gets to be too much, and he goes to their places and doesn't bother to examine why he just doesn't feel right fucking them in the bed that doesn't even smell like Walt after months of him being gone.

*

Walt always comes home. Ray guesses that's the important thing. Walt comes home, and at some point he starts staying for good, the money a comfortable warmth in the bank, and they get another apartment, less dingy, one with Walt's name on the lease too, and Walt finds a job that doesn't involve him being shot for a living, and Ray gets one less person to stop worrying about, even if he worries all the time, but quiet, worries about the fact that they have two kinds of milk in the fridge, and Walt kicks off the covers in the middle of the night so that they both wake up shivering, and Ray doesn't even have it left in him to mind.

*

They don't say anything bullshit romantic, don't hold hands or go on dates or anything Ray was used to with girls, and sometimes words almost push right past what few filters he has, but he always bites them back in time, lets it be said with a nudge against Walt's shoulder or his fist in Walt's hair, with a leg hooked around Walt's thigh. There isn't really anything else to say.


End file.
